Restwise for Cancer Survivors

The Vesper Racing Team uses Restwise to keep a positive state of adaptation so that we are always getting faster and stronger. We are thankful for the generous sponsorship Restwise has given us and hope you will support their efforts to improve the lives of cancer survivors.

Restwise makes software that helps athletes perform better by teaching them when to go hard and when to back off. Recently, we collaborated with LIVESTRONG and the YMCA on a year-long study which generated some super exciting results. We showed that when cancer survivors use exercise as part of their recovery program after treatment, Restwise helps them gain strength and fitness faster. On the back of this evidence, we’ve begun to develop a version of Restwise oriented toward survivors. It’s a rough first step so far, but we intend to continue investing to optimize the tool for this community.

We now find ourselves in an interesting place. Restwise is for profit, but we want to provide it for free to any cancer survivor who wants it. So, we are raising a “scholarship fund” through a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo. We weren’t quite ready to launch, but LIVESTRONG forced our hand by blogging about us (http://blog.livestrong.org/2014/05/05/a-big-c-competition-profile-restwise/) and linking to our campaign (http://igg.me/at/restwise/x/6233971). So we decided to launch the campaign to take advantage of LIVESTRONG’s interest.

I am asking you to help the campaign in three ways.

First, seed it by making a contribution of any size, so when strangers come to the site they see that others have already supported the project. LIVESTRONG’s Director plans to tweet about the campaign to his million plus followers, but we don’t want him to do this until we have some momentum, particularly in terms of number of contributors. So, even if you can just spiff the scholarship fund with a few dollars… the more contributors the better.

Second, we didn’t get a chance to get feedback on the campaign before launching, so if you have any suggestions for improvements, please tell me. As I said, our timing was (in the best way possible) forced.

And third, help us spread the word. If you know of anyone who might be interested in helping cancer survivors, please point them to the campaign. If you are a social media maven (not me!), please use the tools in the campaign to share our story. Finally, If you have a great idea for how to get the word out more effectively and compellingly, please let me know.

On behalf of my company and the cancer survivors we hope to help, my advance thanks!